The problem with singling out anti-Semitism on the Left

This article originally appeared on Truthout.org on September 16, 2018.

A sentiment I hear frequently articulated in some progressive Jewish spaces is that the left needs to be more concerned about anti-Semitism. This view posits that the left has not been sufficiently sensitive to recognizing and addressing Jewish suffering and anti-Semitism.

As a Jew who identifies as being part of the left, I have two main concerns with this formulation. For one, it is unclear who exactly is being referred to here (sometimes the description is “non-Jewish leftists”). Do people mean feminists of color who are organizing for racial justice? Prison abolition groups? Mostly white anti-racist groups? Immigrant rights organizers? Everyone in all those categories? I am not sure why the left, which has so many layers and dimensions to it, is lumped together as all being insensitive to Jews.

A second and bigger problem I have with this framing is why anti-Semitism is being singled out as a particular problem in cases where other injustices aren’t mentioned. I fully appreciate that these discussions come at a particular moment in which we are seeing an upsurge in anti-Semitism amongst white supremacists in this country. However, the way anti-Semitism is called out as a particular problem suggests that the “left” is more prone to being insensitive to anti-Semitism than it is, for example, to Islamophobia (or that it is more likely to lack compassion for Jews than for Muslims). What about classism as another of many examples of a real problem in some left spaces? Since the social justice communities that many of us are part of exist within the context of a broader society ripe with all forms of injustice, we will invariably see some, if not much, of that mirrored within our own spaces. Challenging these systems of oppression within our communities demands our attention, and this includes (but is not limited to) addressing anti-Semitism.

The arguments about anti-Semitism on the left are framed from a position of a commitment to racial justice — and I have no doubt that commitment is often true. But I believe that singling out anti-Semitism specifically in this way ends up feeding into a false and distorted narrative, which claims that nobody (on the left or otherwise) understands anti-Semitism or Jewish suffering.

It seems that there are a few things at work that promote this narrative. One is that, as the Palestinian and global call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) becomes more prominent and pervasive in social justice communities, and as Zionism becomes more fully recognized as one of the many injustices that needs to be challenged, supporters of Israel increasingly conflate anti-Zionism with being insensitive (or worse) to Jews and Jewish suffering.

This conflation is also true among some progressive and leftist Jews. Numerous groups and individuals may articulate strong opposition to the Israeli occupation of 1967, but are deeply uncomfortable with an anti-Zionist framework that addresses the injustices of 1948 (the Nakba, or the catastrophe that resulted in the displacement and expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their lands and homes before and during Israel’s creation).

There are also some Jewish progressive or leftist individuals and organizations that operate from a racial justice analysis and praxis that is only local or domestic, which excludes addressing Zionism as a form of racism; this contrasts with the many social justice movements today whose principles fundamentally connect the local to the global, compelling solidarity with Palestinians as integral to the work and ensuring that it is not excluded from racial justice spaces.

As there is a more widespread awareness and condemnation of the violence of Zionism and Zionist history in radical spaces, this sometimes plays out in false accusations of anti-Semitism or insensitivity to Jews and Jewish history.

Further, many of us in Jewish communities grew up learning that everybody, deep down, hates Jews and that we don’t fit in anywhere. There is certainly no shortage of examples throughout history of virulent anti-Semitism. However, of course, Jews are not alone in having faced unbridled hatred and enormous persecution at the hands of oppressors. I think in some Jewish communities, this learning has resulted in a privileging of Jewish suffering and a belief that nobody — on the left or right — really understands anti-Semitism. And, I believe, part of this framing is exacerbated by a discomfort among some progressive, white Jews that white Jews are being defined as “white” in activist spaces rather than as uniquely Jewish (that is, not really white).

Finally, as I mentioned above, we know there is an increase in anti-Semitism by white supremacists in this country as well as in other parts of the world today. And, at the same time, we also know that Jews (particularly white Jews) in the US do not experience the extreme structural forms of violence facing, for example, Muslims or Black people. However, I believe the fact of rising incidents of visible right-wing anti-Jewish hate has led some to claim that there is increasing anti-Semitism or anti-Jewish sentiment more broadly (e.g., on the left) that needs to be specifically centered as a problem.

For me, a more thoughtful response and framing would be the following: We — individuals and groups committed to challenging injustice and who identify as radical or leftist — always need to challenge ourselves from our own locations and identities about how we perpetuate or are insensitive to issues of, for instance, white supremacy or classism or Islamophobia or anti-Semitism or other oppressive systems that we oppose. That framing doesn’t erase anti-Semitism or minimize it. Rather, while recognizing and appreciating both commonalities and differences in the conditions and contexts facing different communities, it includes anti-Semitism but doesn’t exceptionalize it or categorize it as a unique problem more deserving of attention than other injustices needing to be challenged in our communities.

I believe those of us within Jewish social justice spaces who are concerned about anti-Semitism on the left would benefit from deep reflection about what it is we are centering and why. We should ask ourselves whose voices we are privileging, including the ways we are bolstering problematic narratives. Perhaps we can be more attuned to the specificities, contexts and frameworks propelling the multiplicity of movements for justice. This will be an ongoing learning process for us all, as we genuinely and compassionately join those committed to fighting for dignity for all our communities.

Copyright, Truthout.org. Reprinted with permission

About Donna Nevel

Donna Nevel, a community psychologist and educator, is co-director of PARCEO. She's a founding member of Jews Say No!, Facing the Nakba, and Jews Against Anti-Muslim Racism (JAAMR) and was a co-founder of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.

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27 Responses

Nevel : “There are also some Jewish progressive or leftist individuals and organizations that operate from a racial justice analysis and praxis that is only local or domestic, which excludes addressing Zionism as a form of racism”

They are absolutely correct because Zionism is not racism. Calling Zionism racism is a fucking act of anti-Semitism and you know that to your core Donna Nevel. Therefore Donna Nevel, you are a disgusting anti-Semite!

After the IHRA definition “ antisemitism” now has two separate meanings. One is the traditional one of Jew hatred. But now it also means anyone guilty of taking Palestinian rights seriously. I don’t think it was a good idea to create this second meaning— in fact it seems like a really horrible idea. But there it is.

Mooser: There you go again. How do you come up with such silly comments to put into the mouth of your sock-puppet, “Grover?” And then, sly man that you are, you pretend to get indignant with your own creation just like the ventriloquist who argues with his dummy!
Mooser: You are a comic genius. What would Mondoweiss be without you!

“James North” let’s give credit where it’s due. You are the one who had the smart, if somewhat counter-intuitive, idea of making “Grover” my sockpuppet! (I wouldn’t have dared, knowing the Comment Policy, but I’m sure you have an ‘in’ with the Mods).
I wasn’t happy the first couple of times you insisted “Grover” was my sock-puppet, but I came to see you are right. What else could he be?

“How can it be not racist, if Israel is not even the state of all of its citizens?”

I guess it would be less obvious if Israel, rather than being a tiny territory with a small population, was some superpower with widely dispersed territories where the natives are US citizens, eligible to serve in the US army but not eligible to vote, or get proper disaster relief?

@Steve Grover
“They are absolutely correct because Zionism is not racism. Calling Zionism racism is a fucking act of anti-Semitism and you know that to your core Donna Nevel. Therefore Donna Nevel, you are a disgusting anti-Semite!”

Sigh. Steve, you live in a fantasy world. Zionism is most assuredly racism. It is also 70 years of well documented theft of Palestinian (and other Arab) lands utilizing fascistic tactics, including force of arms, several massacres, mass rape and intimidation, (See Benny Morris, Haaretz, January 9, 2004.) And this theft is based on the utterly absurd and racist belief held by you and your ilk that Jews of foreign origin had/have a “God given” right to dispossess and expel Palestine’s indigenous Arab inhabitants from their ancient homeland** (see below) in order to create an expansionist “Jewish state” therein.

It seems you are also unaware of or choose to ignore the fact that the tactics used by Zionists to dispossess the native Palestinians were carefully laid out in the late 19th and early 20th centuries following the first Zionist Congress in 1897, i.e., DECADES BEFORE THE RISE OF HITLER, THE HOLOCAUST AND WWII.

Here are a few examples:
Theodor Herzl’s diaries not only confirm that his objective was the establishment of a “Jewish state” in Palestine, but that it would be an expansionist state. In the year of his death, 1904, he described its borders as being “…in the north the mountains facing Cappadocia [Turkey], in the south, the Suez Canal [Egypt] in the east, the Euphrates [Iraq].” (Theodor Herzl, The Complete Diaries, 11 p. 711)

Israel Zangwill, the influential Anglo-Jewish essayist and Zionist first believed that the Palestinians would simply “fold their tents and slip away.” It was Zangwill who first voiced the lie that Palestine was a “land without a people, waiting for a people without a land.” (Zangwill,
Israel, “The Return to Palestine”, New Liberal Review 11, Dec. 1901 p 627, quoted by David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch, p. 19)

In 1905, Zangwill contradicted himself during a talk in Manchester when he observed that Palestine was “already twice as thickly populated as the United States…. [W]e must be prepared to either drive out by the sword the [Arab] tribes in possession as our forefathers did or to grapple with the problem of a large alien population….” (Zangwill, Speeches, p. 210, quoted by Nur Masalah , Expulsion of the Palestinians, 1992, p. 10)

In the February 1919 issue of the League of Nations Journal, Zangwill proposed that the Palestinians “should be gradually transplanted” in Arab countries and at a public meeting in the same year he remarked that “many [Palestinians] are semi-nomad, they have given nothing to Palestine and are not entitled to the rules of democracy.” (Jewish Chronicle, Dec. 12 1919, quoted by Masalha, Expulsion…, p.14)

In 1920, Zangwill proposed in The Voice of Jerusalem, that there should be an “‘Arab exodus’…based on ‘race redistribution’ or a ‘trek like that of the Boers from Cape Colony,’ which he advocated as ‘literally the only way out of the difficulty of creating a Jewish State in Palestine.’” He continued: “We cannot allow the Arabs to block so valuable a piece of historic reconstruction….To fold their tents and silently steal away is their proverbial habit: let them exemplify it now.” (Zangwill, The Voice of Jerusalem, p. 103, quoted by Masalha, Expulsion Of The Palestinians, pp. 13- 14)

Other Zionist leaders saw the future Jewish state in Palestine not only free of Arabs, but the first step towards the creation of a much larger country. In 1918, Ben-Gurion described the future borders of the Jewish state as: “to the north, the Litani River; to the northeast, the Wadi’Owja, twenty miles south of Damascus; the southern border will be mobile and pushed into the Sinai at least up to Wadi al-`Arish; and to the east, the Syrian Desert, including the furthest edge of Transjordan.” (Teveth, Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs, pp. 34-34; cited by Nur Masalah, Expulsion of the Palestinians, …, p. 87)

In 1930, when despite ever increasing immigration, Jews privately owned only about four per cent of Palestine, Arthur Ruppin, a pivotal figure in political Zionism wrote that displacement of Arab farmers was inevitable because “land is the most necessary thing for our establishing roots in Palestine. Since there are hardly any more arable unsettled lands in Palestine, we are bound in each case of the purchase of land and its settlement to remove the peasants who cultivated the land so far, both owners of the land and tenants.” (Rashid Khalidi, in Blaming the Victims)

Rabbi Perin, in an eulogy for mass murderer, Baruch Goldstein, in 1994: “One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.” (New York Times, Feb. 28, 1994)

In April, 2001, during his Passover sermon, Rabbi Ovadia Yossef, the spiritual leader of the Shas party and former Israeli Chief Rabbi, described the Arabs as “serpents” and in his Passover sermon, he stated that “the Lord shall waste their seed, devastate them and vanish them from this world. It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable.”

Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir declared during an interview with the foreign editor of the London Sunday Times that “it was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine…and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.” (Sunday Times, London, June 15, 1969)

In the view of another prime minister of Israel, Yitzhak Shamir, the Palestinians are of no more significance than insects when compared to Jews: “From this mountain top and from the vantage point of history I say that these people [the Palestinians] are like grasshoppers compared to us.” (The Independent, April 1988, from Reuter, Tel Aviv; quoted by Michael Rice, False Inheritance, Kegan Paul International, London and New York, 1994, p. 127.)

While delivering a televised address to his Likud party in 1989, Shamir described Palestinian Arabs as “alien invaders of the Holy Land…. They are brutal, wild alien invaders in the land of Israel that belongs to the people of Israel, and only to them.” (New York Post, February 6, 1989)

During a speech to the Knesset, Menachem Begin, Israel’s sixth prime minister, referred to Palestinians as “beasts walking on two legs.” (New Statesman, 25 June 1982)

Regarding Palestinians residing in the occupied West Bank, Raphael Eitan, then Israel’s Chief of Staff, declared: “When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle…. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours.” (New York Times, 14 April 1983)

Prime Minister Ehud Barak: “The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more…” (Jerusalem Post, Aug. 30, 2002)

Rafael Eitan, Israeli Chief of Staff, stated:” When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.” (N.Y. Times, 14 April 1988)

“Former Foreign Ministry director-general invokes South Africa comparisons. ‘Joint Israel-West Bank’ reality is an apartheid state”
EXCERPT: “Similarities between the ‘original apartheid’ as it was practiced in South Africa and the situation in ISRAEL [my emphasis] and the West Bank today ‘scream to the heavens,’ added [Alon] Liel, who was Israel’s ambassador in Pretoria from 1992 to 1994. There can be little doubt that the suffering of Palestinians is not less intense than that of blacks during apartheid-era South Africa, he asserted.” (Times of Israel, February 21, 2013)

In its 2015 Country Report on Human Rights Practices for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, published in 2016, the U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor acknowledges the “institutional and societal discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel.” (U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor)

In short, Jews of foreign origin had/have the same right to Palestine as Irish Catholics and Mexican atheists, i.e., NONE WHAT SO EVER!!

Can I get a piece of Ukraine? I think I have a claim to that area near Baranowicze based on my relatives living there during the period before Neanderthals roamed New Jersey. The only kind of Zionism I dig is the Rastafarian kind of Emperor Haile Selassie …Jah Rastafari

Nevel : “There are also some Jewish progressive or leftist individuals and organizations that operate from a racial justice analysis and praxis that is only local or domestic, which excludes addressing Zionism as a form of racism”

They are absolutely correct because Zionism is not racism. Calling Zionism racism is a fucking act of anti-Semitism and you know that to your core Donna Nevel. Therefore Donna Nevel, you are a disgusting anti-Semite!

“Maybe “furious, offensive Zionist” is the new tack being pushed by ZioHQ?” eljay

Easy for you to make light of their plight.

You and I have spent years , defending a just cause in the sure knowledge , we will one day see the fruits of our efforts.

Jackduh/grover/duhbkr et al have been defending the indefensible all their lives and they know they are swimming upstream against an ever accelerating flow of water ,which will inevitably bring them under and Zionist racism with them.

Well, I honestly have no idea what it’s like to be a rapist, forever feeling “singled out” by society despite knowing in your heart and soul that you are entitled to brutally rape “self-determine” yourself in the women you kidnap and imprison in your basement invite into your home. And, anyway, murderers exist, so whatabout them?

I would applaud Zionists for their dedication if the cause to which they are dedicated weren’t so unjust and immoral.

The Jews who point to neo-Nazi recruiting as proof of anti-Semitism are basically saying that they are afraid (with very little evidence behind their fears) that they will be treated the way Muslims already are treated.

That is not concern about discrimination, it is an argument from incredible privilege. The fact that it has essentially no basis in empirical fact makes it all the more slimy when leftists and anyone else who supports Palestine are tarred with this non-sense.

DN accurately pins the blame on liberal Zionists who focus on 1967 and people who think anti-racism is a domestic issue only.

@bcg
Interesting comment on Burston`s article by one “Joel Stein” who is probably a nom de plume of any or all of the Nathan,DeBakrs ad nauseum on MW viz:
” In my view Bradley Burston suffers from a severe case of Jewish self-debasement syndrome”

Wow self denying,self loathing fairly kosher terms but “self debasement syndrome” that sounds like a habit which teenagers don`t grow out of or even worse something which requires surgery .Also ” SDS “sounds a lot like BDS you know that campaign which a lot of self – debasing Jews support.

Perhaps Mr Stein was having a BDS crisis moment at the time of writing.

“The Jews who point to neo-Nazi recruiting as proof of anti-Semitism are basically saying that they are afraid (with very little evidence behind their fears) that they will be treated the way Muslims already are treated.”

funny how the zionists wind up allied with the worst crop of racists and degenerates, too. whether it’s the brit-fascists, or saudis, ukronazis. how does that happen?

Absolutely correct, @JoeSmack. I refer with thanks to a few @Misterioso’s useful potpourri (above) of “old ones, new ones, loved ones, neglected ones” exemplifying the racism/breathtaking “entitlement” that is central to the Zionist ideology:
“Israel Zangwill, the influential Anglo-Jewish essayist and Zionist first believed that the Palestinians would simply “fold their tents and slip away.” It was Zangwill who first voiced the lie that Palestine was a ‘land without a people, waiting for a people without a land.’”
“In 1905, Zangwill contradicted himself during a talk in Manchester when he observed that Palestine was “already twice as thickly populated as the United States…. [W]e must be prepared to either drive out by the sword the [Arab] tribes in possession as our forefathers did or to grapple with the problem of a large alien population….” (Zangwill, Speeches, p. 210)” “A large WHAT population”???
“In 1920, Zangwill proposed in The Voice of Jerusalem, that there should be an “‘Arab exodus’…based on ‘race redistribution’ or a ‘trek like that of the Boers from Cape Colony,’ which he advocated as ‘literally the only way out of the difficulty of creating a Jewish State in Palestine.’” He continued: “We cannot allow the Arabs to block so valuable a piece of historic reconstruction…. To fold their tents and silently steal away is their proverbial habit: let them exemplify it now.” (Zangwill, The Voice of Jerusalem, p. 103)”
That last bit’s worth reading again: “WE CANNOT ALLOW THE ARABS TO BLOCK SO VALUABLE A PIECE OF HISTORIC RECONSTRUCTION…. TO FOLD THEIR TENTS AND SILENTLY STEAL AWAY IS THEIR PROVERBIAL HABIT: LET THEM EXEMPLIFY IT NOW.” Overweening “entitlement” and arrogance. Nice fellah, that Israel Zangwill…
“Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir declared during an interview with the foreign editor of the London Sunday Times that ‘it was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine…and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.’” Maybe Mrs. Meir was miss-quoted and actually said, ‘it’s not as if there’s a Palestinian people in Palestine… we came and took their country away from them. They don’t exist.’ Or maybe she said it as recorded, but not because she was a racist Zionist but for another reason, e.g. because she was a politician and it’s well-known that all politicians lie, irrespective of their agendas…
One thing mentioned in the article but not really elaborated upon is why there may be some increase in real anti-Semitism, i. e. an irrational animus against Jews by virtue of their religious and cultural adherence alone rather than a rational animus against some Jews because of their support of an immoral and indefensible political ideology and those who implement it, against Diaspora Jews. Partly, it is to do with the deplorable resurgence of white supremacism in the Western political arena. Among Western denizens of non-European heritage, however, any such increase is four-square at Israel’s and its enablers’ doors because of Mileikowsky’s and the Likudniks’ insistent repetition of the false mantra that Israel speaks, acts and behaves on behalf of all Jews, everywhere; and that it is entitled to do so!
I’ve also noticed a bit of an “edge” creeping into the Zio-pologists’ interventions here. It’s a positive sign because it means the Puppen=Meister at Hasbara Central feel they have to step on the accelerator.

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